ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)Alexander Barabanov scored in the fifth round of the shootout and San Jose rallied to beat the Minnesota Wild 3-2 Sunday, giving the Sharks consecutive wins for the first time this season.
Steven Lorentz and Nico Sturm scored in regulation and James Reimer made 28 saves for San Jose, which was coming off a 5-4 win at Dallas on Friday night.
”We addressed it before the game that we won a game the other night, but we can’t win a game and then drop three or four in a row again,” Sturm said.
Tied at 1 after four shooters apiece, Barabanov’s wrist shot from low in the left circle beat Filip Gustavsson between the pads. Nick Bonino also scored in the shootout; the first San Jose has won in four attempts this season.
Kirill Kaprizov scored in the shootout for Minnesota, which got regulation goals from Freddy Gaudreau and Connor Dewar. Gustavsson finished with 35 saves.
”We got what we asked for tonight,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. ”I don’t know any other way to describe it. It was a dumb loss. We played so east, west, so cute. Not straight forward. All of the cliches. We didn’t deserve to win that hockey game tonight.”
With the Sharks down by two in the latter half of the third period, Lorentz and Sturm scored just under two minutes apart to tie it.
Lorentz poked home his second attempt at a rebound Gustavsson couldn’t control with 6:04 left. Then a harmless-looking shot from the right circle by Sturm banked in off Gustavsson’s arm with 4:11 remaining. Sturm played 111 games from 2019-22 for the Wild.
Minnesota had not allowed a goal in 140:33 prior to the two tallies, including a 1-0 win Friday in Seattle.
”We could have easily got really down and packed it in after we went down 2-0 and we didn’t. We kept coming,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. ”I know they probably don’t love the second goal, but we don’t love their second goal either. . We really competed and that was a nutsy win.”
With Minnesota up by a goal early in the third period, Dewar scored short-handed on a play that began in a most unlikely way. On a San Jose power play, Erik Karlsson tripped and fell while skating backwards parallel to the blue line. Mason Shaw got the puck and led a two-man breakaway into the Sharks end and passed to Dewar, who beat Reimer stick side for his first goal of the year and first in 29 games.
A sneaky Gaudreau put Minnesota on the board less than seven minutes in. Getting behind the defense low in the left circle, Gaudreau took a pass from Kaprizov, got Reimer on his stomach by cutting across the crease and lifted a shot into the unguarded net.
STREAK SNAPPED
San Jose’s Timo Meier did not score for the first time in six games but came close. Not only did he hit the post in overtime, his first-period breakaway was turned aside on a right pad save by Gustavsson.
INJURIES
San Jose D Radim Simek played one first-period shift and did not return after a hit to the head from Shaw. Quinn said more should be known Monday.
Evason said RW Brandon Duhaime, who’s missed five games with an upper-body injury, has been skating ”quite a few days” and might return Tuesday in Nashville. But LW Jordan Greenway will not travel to Tennessee. He has missed three straight and eight of nine with upper-body injuries.
UP NEXT
Sharks: conclude a four-game trip at Vegas Tuesday.
Wild: at Nashville Tuesday before seven straight games at home.
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